An offshore worker has been jailed for throwing a punch that has left his victim needing round-the-clock care.
Liam Cromwell punched the man after trading insults over rival Glasgow football teams Rangers and Celtic.
The 22-year-old previously pleaded guilty to assaulting the man to his severe injury, permanent disfigurement and endangerment of his life and appeared at Lerwick Sheriff Court today for sentencing.
Cromwell, of 61 King Fisher Drive, Inverurie, also admitted the incident, which happened outside the Clydesdale Bank in Lerwick on August 10 last year, had been aggravated by religious prejudice.
It happened when two groups of friends, who had been out drinking, exchanged insults over rival Glasgow football teams Rangers and Celtic.
The court heard that his victim punched first and walked away, but Cromwell followed him and after a brief verbal exchange landed a single punch.
As a result the man stumbled and fell, hitting his head on the ground. He was rushed to Lerwick’s Gilbert Bain Hospital where emergency surgery saved his life before he was flown by air ambulance to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
The court was told last month that the man remains in hospital and will need “constant and daily care for the rest of his life”.
Today defence advocate Gail Goodfellow described Cromwell as a “polite, mild mannered, caring individual” and said although he had been in trouble as a teenager, had turned his life around.
She said he fully acknowledged the “gravity and devastating consequences” of his actions, but suggested there was “a disproportion between the level of violence used and the injuries sustained”.
Now, she said, Cromwell was “a very scared young man” who suffered from nightmares and had difficulty sleeping from the guilt and remorse he felt.
She urged Sheriff Philip Mann to consider an alternative to jail, and told the court her client could pay £10,000 in compensation to his victim.
However, the sheriff said there was no alternative to jail.
Jailing Cromwell for 12 months, he said: “I can’t bring myself to say that the consequences (of the assault) are simply down to bad luck.
“Rather it’s a matter of good luck and good fortune that the result was not even worse. It could have been fatal.”